US army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan, who shot dead 13 people at a Texas army base in 2009, has been convicted on all charges and faces the death penalty.

A military jury found Hasan guilty on 13 counts of pre-meditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder.

The 42-year-old had admitted the shooting at Fort Hood, saying he attacked unarmed soldiers at a medical building in order to protect Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Representing himself at the court martial, he declined to present a defence and had no visible reaction as the verdict was read.

Hasan, seated in a wheelchair as he was paralysed from the waist down when shot by police to end the rampage, stared directly at the jury while the panel's president read the verdict. Afterward he looked down, stroking his beard.

The sentencing phase of the trial begins next week.

Major Hasan's court-appointed legal advisers have told the judge they believe he wants to be executed although Hasan has disputed that claim.

If sentenced to death, Hasan would become the first soldier to be executed by the US military since 1961.

The American-born Muslim who acted as his own defence lawyer, admitted in his opening statement to killing 13 people and wounding 31, saying he switched sides in what he considered a US war on Islam.

Nearly all of the dead and wounded were fellow soldiers.

Prosecutors stress rampage was premeditated

Beyond the opening admission, the jury rarely heard from Hasan, who declined to make a closing argument on Thursday and rested his case on Wednesday without calling witnesses and without testifying in his own defence.

In their closing statement, prosecutors stressed that Hasan's rampage on November 5, 2009 was premeditated.

Prosecutors called 89 witnesses in two weeks of testimony, with many describing in horrific detail the bloodbath in and around a medical building at Fort Hood.

It was the worst non-combat attack ever at a US military base.

For Hasan to be eligible for the death penalty, the jury must find he killed at least two people, and at least one of those has to have been a unanimous premeditated murder conviction.

Hasan opened fire at an area where soldiers were being evaluated before being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, yelling "Alluha akbar" ("God is greatest"), according to several witnesses.

The shootings came at a time of heightened tensions over the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which strained relations between the United States and countries with predominantly Muslim populations.

US intelligence officials say Hasan had sent emails to Awlaki, who was killed by a US drone strike in 2011. The judge blocked those emails from being submitted as evidence in the trial.

Prosecutors opted against bringing terrorism charges against Hasan, who at one point during the trial told the judge his attack was motivated by "an illegal war" and that he had "adequate provocation" to launch the attack on soldiers readying to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan.